Conventional communication assistance techniques known in the art enable interpersonal communication between users to be performed smoothly and actively by extracting topics of common interest or by searching for communication partners with whom specific topics of interest can be shared.
With one such technique known in the art, for example, a user can search for an information source having information that the user wants to obtain and a topic in which the user is likely to share the greatest interest with the information source (see, for example, Patent Citations 1 and 2). With another technique known in the art, a user can find out topics that are unrelated to the subject matter of the communication using a list of topics given by the other party of the communication, so that the communication with the other party will be developed (see, for example, Patent Citation 3). With still another technique, pieces of content are collected based on profiles of a user, and an information page consisting of the collected pieces of content is displayed to another user (see, for example, Patent Citation 4). With still another technique, an interest level of a topic common to a transmitter and a receiver of e-mail messages is calculated based on the frequency of transmitted and received e-mail messages, and a user can find a community based on the calculated interest level (see, for example, Patent Citation 5).    Patent Citation 1: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2000-231573    Patent Citation 2: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-282805    Patent Citation 3: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2001-282687    Patent Citation 4: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2003-223406    Patent Citation 5: Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 2005-327105